Resnicks Take Colorado: Part 1

If you’ve been here a while (hahah you’ve all been here a while because you’re literally my family and I have no other followers), you know we spend a lot of time in Colorado. We’ve actually been going every year for the last 28. Feel free to read about some of our most recent trips here, here, or here (spoiler: this last one actually has all 3 parts of this “new” series “Resnicks take Colorado” linked at the bottom if you get impatient, because as you’ll see in a second, these posts are not actually new). The last 12 months have been the longest amount of time basically in my entire life that I have not been in Colorado. Stop crying mom, we’ll all get there again soon I promise.

Anyway, about 3.5 years ago, Eric turned 30. For his birthday he wanted to go to Jazz Fest in Telluride, CO. We took this opportunity to do a road trip, because even though we’ve been going there 28 years we pretty much only go to Beaver Creek with an occasional hop over to Vail for a few hours. The concert in Telluride was an opportunity to see some other areas of our favorite state. Right after that trip, I posted 3 guest blog posts on Marissa’s blog. Now that I have a blog of my own all (mostly) about travel, I am reposting them here. Here’s part 1, with some minor edits in italics:

August 3:

We put Landen down for a nap in Brookville, and when he woke up, we were gone. Sorry kid. But he had his grandpa there to get him, and we were on our way to LaGuardia for five days and one 30^th birthday in Colorado. We got to LGA, checked in super early, and all was well. And then after spending a lot of time contemplating the suitcase choice (2 carryons that wouldn’t reallllly fit our stuff and we’d have to live out of for five days in four hotels, or one big suitcase that would have to be checked but was easier to find stuff in – you can use your imagination to figure out who wanted to live out of carryons and who wanted a big organized checked bag), and after choosing the big suitcase, they said “If anyone on the 12pm flight to Denver did not check a bag and would like to get on the earlier flight, there is space.” Cool cool cool.

The flight was uneventful and we landed in Denver a few minutes early, got our bags and rental car SUPER fast, and headed to Boulder. We got there and got some coffee (for Eric) and then met up with Alyssa, who lives about 20 minutes north of Boulder. The three of us went for about a two-ish hour hike and saw some beautiful mountain views. The weather was calling for possible thunderstorms, but we chanced it and it was 70 and partly cloudy the entire hike. Seriously perfect.

Then it was 6pm MT, 8pm EST, so we were STARVING and decided to go to our 7:30 dinner a little early. They said sorry, no can do, so we sucked it up and walked around Boulder a little. Boulder is a lovely little city nestled in the mountains. There is a great downtown walking area with lots of restaurants and shops and street performers. Great place that I highly recommend.

At 7 we decided to try again, and the restaurant, The Med (The Mediterranean), was able to seat us. It was a tapas/paella place with DELICIOUS tapas and meh paella. Then just as the waiter asked us if we wanted dessert we saw a pizza arrive at the table next to us so we said ummmm we’ll have pizza for dessert? Seriously we did that. And the pizza was great and it weirdly but deliciously had avocado on it. Good stuff.

And then bed.

August 4:

The next morning we woke up fairly early, because time difference, and went for breakfast. We were going to go to Snooze, which is the number one breakfast place in Boulder, but I was a little skeptical because it’s a chain. Thank god for locals (Alyssa) who told us to go to Lucille’s instead because 1. It’s not a chain. 2. There was a Snooze IN our hotel in Denver (more on that later) and 3. Lucille’s was a delicious adorable local breakfast spot. We started with beignets, which were massive and delicious and later shared with a homeless man. Then Eric got an awesome biscuit (obviously I was not the famous blogger I am now back then because I didn’t even get a picture of the beignets or biscuit), like almost GSO diner awesome (editor’s note: this made me smile. <–That was an edit from Marissa back when I wrote this because she lived in GSO and this was originally posted on her blog.) and I got a dream breakfast of scrambled eggs with spinach, topped with ginger tofu and sesame braised carrots with a side of whole wheat toast, served with tamari sauce on the side (editor’s note: a dream breakfast for who? me? <–also Marissa’s edit, and I still think this is a dream breakfast probably for both of us?).

Next we walked to the university, which is obviously a beautiful school with beautiful mountains and I would LOVE to see the large green areas covered in snow or busy with students. But it was summer. We took some pictures, bought some clothing from the bookstore, and headed back to the hotel to check out and start our road trip to Telluride.

Our first stop was Red Rocks, which is a beautiful outdoor amphitheater in the middle of the mountains and nestled in some giant red rocks. We should all probably go see a show there at some point (post covid, which wasn’t a thing when I wrote this).

Our next stop was Safeway, because road trip snacks, and then we went on down to South Park (hahaha I can’t believe I wrote that 3 years ago. I probably thought it was so funny). Which is actually called Fairplay, Co. It was a cute tiny little town in the middle of nowhere with maybe like 12 buildings total. We took a picture with our faces in all of the South Park characters bodies, and we got some delicious paninis/sandwiches from the random place on the corner, and we were back on the road.

I’m proud of this picstitch even though Eric could photo shop something more beautiful. Whatever.

The next stop was supposed to be some town with a bunch of bars overlooking some cliffs, but it was getting late and we had a lot more hours of driving, so we skipped this stop and headed to the Blue Mesa Reservoir. This was really just a photo op – a collection of mountains, cliffs, sand dunes, and a giant reservoir. It was raining, and our car claimed to have low tire pressure, which is VERY stressful in a rental car with no cell service and no gas station or really anything for hundreds of miles. We did not enjoy the Blue Mesa Reservoir. We got a not great picture in the rain though, and probably would’ve enjoyed it much more if the sun was shining and the tires were all good.

After this we decided no more stops. You know, just in case the tires deflated and stuff (they did not, and we did find a gas station to add air, and the pressure was fine the rest of the week, so don’t worry Bettina). No more stops, except this one abandoned motel that was on the side of the road on our way, and we absolutely could not resist. It’s SUPER creepy. An abandoned motel with two cars out front, and a room that still has clothing left in the window, next to an abandoned restaurant and gas station. It may have been somewhat of a highlight of our drive.

Finally, after over eight hours of driving through every different landscape imaginable – forests, mountains, dessert (editor’s note: you eat dessert, and you drove through a desert. when in doubt, remember “dessert has two s’s because you always want more of it. desert has one s because you don’t want more of it.<–oh, thank you Marissa, for this grammar lesson. I want to be clear, I KNOW this difference and I KNOW this memory trick and that was obviously a typo but I’m leaving it there for authenticity), sand dunes, plains, plateaus – and winding around super scary mountain roads (which I have since learned are closed in the winter) we arrived in beautiful Telluride. We checked in, quickly got dressed, and took the gondola up to the top of the mountain for an awesome dinner.

The gondola in Telluride runs from 7 am until 2 am, it’s free, and it makes stops in the town of Telluride, the mountain village, the top of the mountain, and the supermarket – no need for cars at all. It is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Dinner was at a restaurant on the top of the mountain with amazing views and amazing food. (The restaurant was called Allred’s and I have no idea why I didn’t include that the first time I wrote this. I was such an amateur before I was famous.) We started with crispy shishito peppers and a delicious raw Hamachi, and then we shared an elk dish and a fried cauliflower dish, all of which Eric picked because his eating habits have officially been Finnspired. (I am super proud of how Eric’s eating habits have improved over the years and I take full responsibility and every day I hope that I can create tiny adventurous eaters in my home as well, but not until after Covid because right now grilled cheese is working for us and we don’t need to lose our minds completely.)

And then bed.